This work such an academy might begin, and I believe nothing would so soon explode the practice as the public discouragement of it by such a society; where all our customs and habits, both in speech and behaviour, should receive an authority. All the disputes about precedency of wit, with the manners, customs, and usages of the theatre, would be decided here; plays should pass here before they were acted, and the critics might give their censures and damn at their pleasure; nothing would ever die which once received life at this original. The two theatres might end their jangle, and dispute for priority no more; wit and real worth should decide the controversy, and here should be the infallible judge. The strife would then be only to do well, And he alone be crowned who did excel. Ye call them Whigs, who from the church withdrew, But now we have our stage dissenters too, Who scruple ceremonies of pit and box, And very few are sound and orthodox, But love disorder so, and are so nice, They hate conformity, though ’tis in vice. Some are for patent hierarchy; and some, Like the old Gauls, seek out for elbow room; Their arbitrary governors disown, And build a conventicle stage of their own. Fanatic beaux make up the gaudy show, And wit alone appears incognito. Wit and religion suffer equal fate; Neglect of both attends the warm debate. For while the parties strive and countermine, Wit will as well as piety decline. Next to this, which I esteem as the most noble and most useful proposal in this book, I proceed to academies for military studies, and because I design rather to express my meaning than make a large book, I bring them all into one chapter. I allow the war is the best academy in the world, where men study by necessity and practice by force, and both to some purpose, with duty in the action, and a reward in the end; and it is evident to any man who knows the world, or has made any observations on things, what an improvement the English nation has made during this seven years’ war. But should you ask how clear it first cost, and what a condition England was in for a war at first on this account—how almost all our engineers and great officers were foreigners, it may put us in mind how necessary it is to have our people so practised in the arts of war that they may not be novices when they come to the experiment.